Bitten (Otherworld 1)

I closed my eyes and screamed, drowning his words. Where was Clay? Why had he left me with this madman? Why had he abandoned me? He loved me. I knew he loved me.

"I know you don't believe it, Elena. But watch me. Just watch."

I wrenched my head sideways, so I wasn't looking at him. I could see only his arm holding mine to the bed. After a moment, his forearm seemed to shimmer and contract. I shook my head sharply, feeling the pain inside it bounce around like a red-hot coal. My vision blurred, then cleared. Jeremy's arm convulsed, the wrist narrowing, the hand twisting and contorting into a knot. I wanted to close my eyes, but I couldn't. I was transfixed by the sight before me. The black hairs on his arm thickened. More hairs sprouted, shooting out from his skin and growing longer and longer. The pressure of his fingers relaxed. I looked down. There were no fingers there. A black paw rested on my arm. I shut my eyes then and screamed until the world went dark.

It took over a year for me to truly comprehend what I'd become, that it wasn't a nightmare or a delusion, and that it would never end, that there was no cure. Jeremy allowed Clay back eighteen months later, but it would never be the same between us again. It couldn't be. There are some things you cannot forgive.

I awoke several hours later, feeling Clay's arms around me, my back pressed against him. A slow wave of peace started lulling me back to sleep. Then I jerked awake. Clay's arms around me. My back pressed against him. Lying together in the grass. Naked. Oh, shit.

I extricated myself from his grasp without waking him, then slipped from the clearing and hurried to the house. Jeremy was on the back porch, reading the New York Times in the first blush of sunrise. When I saw him I stopped, but it was too late. He'd seen me. Yes, I was naked, but that wasn't why I would have rather avoided Jeremy. Years of Pack life had stripped me of my modesty--no pun intended. Whenever we ran, we finished naked and often far from our clothing. Disconcerting at first, waking from a post-run sleep to find yourself lying in a grotto with three or four naked guys. Disconcerting, though not an altogether unpleasant experience, given that these guys were all werewolves, hence in excellent physical condition and didn't look too shabby au naturale. But I digress. The point is that Jeremy had been seeing my naked body for years. When I stepped from the trees sans clothing, he didn't even notice the lack.

He folded the paper, got up from his lounge chair, and waited. Lifting my chin, I made the journey to the porch. He would smell Clay on me. There was

no way I could escape that.

"I'm tired," I said, trying to brush past him. "It's been a long night. I'm going back to bed."

"I'd like to hear what you found last night."

His voice was soft. A request, not a command. It would've been easier to ignore a direct order. As I stood there, the thought of going to bed, being alone with my thoughts, was suddenly too much. Jeremy was offering a distraction. I decided to take it. Sinking onto a chair, I told him the whole story. Okay, it wasn't the whole story, but I told him about finding the mutt's apartment, leaving out the aftermath with the boys in the alley and definitely excluding anything that happened after we got back. Jeremy listened and said little. As I finished, I caught a flicker of movement in the backyard. Clay strode from out of the forest, shoulders rigid, mouth set in a hard line.

"Go inside," Jeremy said. "Get some sleep. I'll look after him."

I escaped into the house.

Up in my room, I took my cell phone from my bag and called Toronto. I didn't call Philip, but it wasn't because I felt guilty. I didn't call him because I knew I should feel guilty and, since I couldn't, it didn't seem right to call. Does that make sense? Probably not.

If I'd had sex with anyone other than Clay, I would have felt guilty. On the other hand, the chances of me cheating on Philip with anyone other than Clay were so infinitesimal that the point was moot. I was loyal by nature, whether I wanted to be or not. Yet what I had with Clay was so old, so complex, that sleeping with him couldn't be compared to normal sex. It was giving in to something I felt so deeply that all the anger and hurt and hate in the world couldn't stop me from going back to him. Being a werewolf, being at Stonehaven, and being with Clay were so tightly interwoven that I couldn't separate the strands. Surrender to one meant surrender to all. Giving myself to Clay wasn't betraying Philip, it was betraying myself. That terrified me. Even as I sat on my bed, clutching the phone in one hand, I felt myself slipping. The barrier between my worlds was solidifying and I was trapped on the wrong side.

I sat there, staring at the phone, trying to decide who to call, what contact in my human life had the power to pull me back. For a second, I thought of calling Anne or Diane. I rejected the idea immediately then wondered why I'd thought of it at all. If talking to Philip wouldn't help me, why would I ever consider calling his mother or sister? I chased the thought a moment, but something in it scared me off. After a brief pause, my fingers hit buttons of their own accord. As the phone rang, I numbly wondered who I'd called. Then the voice mail clicked on. "Hi, you've reached Elena Michaels at Focus Toronto. I'm not in the office right now, but if you'll leave your name and number at the sound of the tone, I'll return your call as soon as possible." I hung up, pulled back the covers, crawled into bed, then reached for the phone and hit redial.

By the fifth call, I was asleep.

It was nearly noon by the time I awoke. As I dressed, footsteps in the hallway stopped me cold.

"Elena?"

Clay rattled the door handle. It was locked. The only lock in the house Clay didn't dare break.

"I heard you get up," he said. "Let me in. I want to talk to you."

I finished tugging on my jeans.

"Elena? Come on." The door rattled harder. "Let me in. We need to talk."

Pulling my hair back, I clipped it at the nape of my neck. Then I walked across the room, opened the window, and swung out, hitting the ground below with a thud. Pricks of shock raced up my calves, but I wasn't hurt. A two-story jump wasn't dangerous for a werewolf.

Above me, Clay pounded at my door. I headed around the house and went in the front. Jeremy and Antonio were walking down the hall when I stepped in. Jeremy stopped and raised one eyebrow.

"The stairs aren't challenging enough anymore?" he asked.

Antonio laughed. "Challenge has nothing to do with it, Jer. I'd say it's the big bad wolf huffing and puffing at her door up there." He leaned around the corner and shouted up the stairs. "You can stop shaking the house apart now, Clayton. You've been outmaneuvered. She's down here."

Jeremy shook his head and steered me toward the kitchen. By the time Clay came down, I was halfway through breakfast. Jeremy directed him to a seat at the opposite end of the table. He grumbled, but obeyed. Nick and Peter arrived shortly after and, in the ensuing chaos of breakfast, I relaxed and was able to ignore Clay. When we were done eating, I told the others what we'd found the night before. As I talked, Jeremy scanned the newspapers. I was wrapping up when Jeremy put down the paper and looked at me.

"Is that everything?" he asked.

Something in his voice dared me to say it was. I hesitated, then nodded.